Kim!

Kim was the only one to get the correct answers. Her email:

"here are my guesses for your contest:
Tico: Tico Torres from Bon Jovi
Julio: Julio Franco from the Mets (I am not sure about this one, I just googled "mets" and "julio")".

Most everyone got Tico right. (I guess that wasn't too hard!) And many guessed Julio Iglesias, so I guess my "perform" clue was a little misleading.

So congratulations to Kim and a big thank you to everyone for entering!!

So I apologize for the delay in posting the contest winner, we were in the city Friday through Sunday for Kevin's friend's wedding (for which there was the Joyce Leslie adventure below).

The wedding and dinner were really nice. They had the ceremony before dinner at the restaurant. And then we ate and ate and ate and ate. On Saturday, they rented out the top floor of The Bar Room and had a nice party (and an open bar! Weeeee!). The picture is from Saturday's party.

Just got done watching the Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest. I don't think I need to eat today.

During our NYC excursion over the weekend, I needed to take some knitting with me, but I didn't have much on the needles that was small and portable (not that I have much of anything on the needles right now anyway), so I decided to start a new sock. Several train and subway rides and watching 2 soccer matches gave me a nearly finished sock. I managed to finish it last night on the train and subway ride out to Shea to watch the Mets get squashed by the Pirates (what a horrible game... I don't knit during the game, but I was really tempted with as bad as they played). The yarn is Interlacements Toasty Toes and I am totally in love with the colors. When I finish the second sock, this will be my third pair of Toasty Toes. On size 6 needles, they knit up fast and are squishy, warm, and soft.

Under the sock is a really great gift my knitting buddy Kathy gave me. I've mentioned Kathy before and how as a librarian she can get any knitting book. Well, she had let me check out "Knitting from the Top" from the library for over a month. It was a paperback copy that was the third or fourth printing of the book. Kathy was reorganizing her knitting books (her own personal books, not the library's) prior to our last knitting night and found that she had an original copy of "Knitting from the Top" printed in the early 70s. She had bought it for 99 cents! And she gave me the book because she didn't think she would ever use it. I'm so grateful and happy that she gave me the book!!! And in case you don't believe it is the original 70s copy, check out these great pictures from the end of the back...

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That purple outfit is 100% knitted (yes, the pants too!)

View imageVery fashionable knitted bathing suits.

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Knitted leggings... actually, reversible knitted leggings

Well, I just discovered last night that my summer class starts Monday, not the 17th, like I had been planning. Crap crap crap!!!!

1. I made a washcloth. Simple Sugar and Cream yarn and the pattern for the burp cloths in Mason-Dixon Knitting. I tried the actual washcloth pattern and it looked crappy in this colorway. I think this turned out really cool.

2. My class starts tomorrow. I spent most of Friday revamping the entire syllabus that I had already printed and copied. So tomorrow, I'll be handing out the syllabus and following that up with an announcement that most of it is wrong. I think the changes make things easier on me and the students in terms of assignments. And I couldn't justify killing another forest of trees to print new ones.

3. I'm about halfway finished with the prize sheep. It has most of a body.

4. Venture Brothers season 2 kicks so much ass. (That's where the quote above is from). Just another hour until the next new episode. Sundays at 10:30pm are my new favorite TV time.

5. Ok, my other favorite TV time is Thursdays from 10 to 11pm. New episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Very funny!

6. Oh, and I just noticed that we now get SoapNet, the soap opera channel. Not that I'm going to go back to watching soaps (nor do I have the time!). But! They have 90210 in the early evenings. Last summer when I was teaching, I could get up in the morning and watch an episode on FX while I ate breakfast and got dressed, but they stopped showing them. Once it gets through about a season or 2 into the college years, it isn't as good. But I'll be able to hopefully catch a couple of episodes a week when Kevin is teaching.

7. The backside of the washcloth. Kevin said it is cool because it looks like it was woven. I think there was some magic in where I placed the cast on and the pattern to cause this look. I started another washcloth (granted in a different colorway) and the same effect isn't occuring.

8. How come no one told me how cool Shutterfly is? I just ordered a bunch of pictures that have been sitting on my computer because I was too lazy to burn them onto a CD and take them to the CVS to have prints made. Doing it online and having them mailed to you?! Totally awesome.

It's too hot to knit. That's why I've been a bit quiet here. Because of the heat, (and Alton Brown... I've decided this is the summer of Alton, sort of like the Summer of George), Kevin and I bought an ice cream maker! That picture is of our first ever batch spinning away. We made Alton's mint chip with Andes candies. I can't wait to taste it!! The only change we made to the recipe is that we used mint extract instead of peppermint oil (couldn't find it). Hopefully it will still be good.

Updated: Comments apparently don't work. I'm working on it. Feel free to email me or leave a comment back on the old site for now.

Welcome to the new home of kim's knitting world!

It finally became time to move the blog. There were many reasons for moving, most specifically because I'd have to within a year anyway, so better to do it now than next summer when (fingers crossed) would be preparing for a real job (fingers crossed and wishing very hard).

I've been working hard on getting this site to actually work and bringing over stuff from the old site. So far we've got the old galleries (completed projects, socks gallery, knitting backwards, and the evolution of sexie). Kim's fingerless sockotta pattern came over. I also have archived the posts from March 2006 to now.

Things to do: update webring links and bring over older archives. It will take me some time to get the site to 100% so there will probably still be changes.

I'm having problems with the feeds too. If you are getting the feed through bloglines or whereever, DON'T use the "feed.rss", I don't know why it is there. Also, I don't know why the title keeps coming up "First Weblog" on bloglines (is this true for others?). I've tried changing a bunch of things in the axom.xml and index.xml files, but nothing seems to fix it. Anyone know how to fix it?!!?!?!?! Please help!!

I hope you enjoy the new site. It will be just like kim's knitting world of old, but I'll gradually start taking the name Dr. Girlfriend** Knits more.

**Dr. Girlfriend is my FAVORITE character on the Venture Brothers.

Oh... and the ice cream was AWESOME. (more details later)

Thanks much to the LivingDot Support people! The comments are now functioning (fingers crossed that it remains that way). And it seems that things are fixed with the feed too (fingers crossed). Please let me know if you have any problems.

The awesome thing about the comments is that I will finally be able to access the comments in my email and will actually be able to respond to people. At the old site, I could read your comments, but I couldn't get your email addresses, so I couldn't really respond (unless I already new your email address from previous correspondence).

Now that the site seems to be functioning more smoothly, maybe I'll try to get some knitting accomplished.

Of course right at this moment I'm dying to knit, but that's because I'm at my office so I'm bored and cool. Unlike when I go home and I'm a melting lump of laziness. At least it looks as though the temperature will come down a bit by the weekend.

I know, you've all been waiting... the ice cream. The ice cream was HEAVENLY! And not just because of the heat. It was delicious and the perfect premium ice cream texture. We followed Alton Brown's recipe for mint chip. So we basically made a custard, then tempered an egg/sugar mixture, heated that all up to 170 and then let it cool. Once it was cool we added some mint extract (Alton's recipe calls for peppermint oil, but we didn't have it. Connie mentioned looking at the health food store for the oil, which I think I might do later this week. Thanks for the tip!). After adding the extract, we waited until it was room temperature and than refridgerated it over night (partly because it was close to 2am at this point). In the morning, we crushed some Andes candies (ok, I smashed them with a meat mallet!), poured the mixture into the machine, stared at it puzzled for a few minutes as it made some noises like it was about to explode liquid ice cream everywhere. But then the machine calmed down and churned away for about 22 minutes when it looked like it was about to overflow from how fluffy the ice cream was. So we scooped it into containers and put them in the freezer. Later that night... YUM YUM YUM. With the exception of the strong spearmint flavor, you probably would never have guess it was homemade. I think on Thursday or Friday when we get to the grocery store again, we'll pick up some supplies for more ice cream adventures! So I'll keep y'all informed. And if you don't have an ice cream maker... go get one! It was only $50 (we got the standard Cuisinart 1.5 qt. model).

Last night, I plopped myself down between 2 fans and finally finished up this sheep for Kim who won that contest back at the beginning of the month. This picture is the pre-felting stage. She is now felted and temporarily stuffed with plastic bags. Hopefully, she'll be dry by tomorrow so I can stuff her and mail her out. The sheep is nameless right now. The names come to me after the final stuffing when I can really get a good look at the sheep's character. Although I already have a feeling that this sheep is a she not a he.

I also need to mail out my package for the Sock Knit Swap. I've had it finished and ready to go for a week or so now. I thought that it was similar to the sockapalooza exchanges and everyone mailed them off around the same time. But I rechecked the details the other day and realized that it should just be mailed sometime before mid-August. I'll post some pictures after I send it off (even though I'm 99.99% certain that my pal doesn't read my blog, you never know for sure).

I took this picture a couple of weeks ago while on a bike ride in the park. The park runs along a river, but there is also this little pond which geese tend to hang around. Actually, geese hang around everywhere in New Jersey that has even a puddle of water. So the park is fairly overrun with geese, and I guess one of the bright ideas for eliminating or moderating the geese problem was to put up these dog silhouettes. But apparently the geese are too smart to be fooled.

I also wanted to share this picture from the same bike ride. There's a mini zoo in the park and they have mostly a lot of goats and deer (which is weird because there are already a lot of "wild" deer around, so I wonder if the caged deer get mocked at night by the wild deer). But they have this iguana and I liked the picture because if you look carefully you can see the reflection of me on my bike.

I was going to show you my new FO. I finally finished up that linen hand towel from Mason Dixon last night. (I took 2 projects with me to knitting night. One on straight needles (a washcloth) and one on circular needles (the towel). And guess why I prefer knitting everything on circulars... yeah, forgot the other straight needle.) But it was thundering a lot a few minutes ago, so pictures will have to wait until it is sunny.

The second thing that really has me frustrated is the "Knitting Nature" book. Well, not so much the book itself. Kathy brought the book last night to Panera and let me borrow it and in the past 12 hours I've become singularly obsessed with the Roundabout Leaf Tank. I saw it first on the Harlot's blog, and was interested, but not obsessed. I had been worried for a bit about the state of my knitting because while I was knitting some fun little projects, I haven't had any interest in a "big" project for a while. I want to make a sweater for my dad and one for Kevin, but I have zero motivation or inspiration. And so I've been worried that I had no desire for sweaters any more. I know, foolish thinking! I just needed something exciting to cross my path and since seeing the Roundabout in the book, I've been obsessed. So I started looking around for the yarn, excited to have a new fun project in mind. And if you've tried to find the Denim Silk yourself, you know that it was discontinued nearly a year ago and impossible to find. And if you do find it the available colors are terrible. I would understand if a yarn was discontinued after a book was published. BUT denim silk was discontinued prior to the publication date on the book. Now, I understand the book was probably already ready to go and in the preprinting stages before denim silk was discontinued, but I've seen several places that state that the book author is the associated designer for Berroco, and you'd think that the designer for a line of yarn would have some idea which ones will be discontinued and which ones won't. I've spent about 4 hours now trying to find denim silk or a comparable substitute. I haven't been very successful. Austermann Mayfair would likely work, but Elann only has 3 hideous colors. Patons Katrina might work. Lana Grossa Stop might be acceptable, but gauge could be a problem and the colors aren't great. Finally, I found a knitter who knit the tank with Cotton Twist, which is available in a lot of colors and affordable, and at least has been used for the tank. I haven't decided what to go with. I'm depressed about the entire thing. I was so excited last night to open the internet, find a site selling denim silk, order it, and wait for the yarn to show up. This time wasting search for a substitute has put a damper on my desire to make the tank. Sigh.

Kevin and I are currently churning our next ice cream machine creation. This is raspberry sorbet! We blended (in the blender) frozen raspberries, 4 key limes, and a simply syrup (equal parts water and sugar). This is for Sunday to wow some friends who we'll be going on a picnic with.

I decided to order the Cotton Twist for the Roundabout Leaf Tank. I picked the color "Corot" with Kevin's help. It is a nice neutral green. Not to bright, not to dark.

And while I'm not as frustrate with knitting things as I was early, I did decide to sew today because I picked up Threads magazine because they had a cute, simple pattern for a tiered skirt. Well, I just couldn't make it work. At least I had the foresight to be making a practice one with crappy fabric before investing money in good fabric. But I apparently just couldn't make it work. So I'm now annoyed with sewing too. I was thinking of taking a class at Fabric Land to get me refreshed with the basics and maybe have some professional guidance, the class doesn't start until August, but it costs $120. I don't know if I can give up that potential stash money! Haha!

Time to put the sorbet in the freezer!!!

I finally finished the hand towel from Mason-Dixon and finally got some good weather and a few minutes to snap a picture. As you can see, I didn't really follow the pattern in the book. I think the only part of their pattern that I followed was the number of stitches to cast on.

Here is a close up of the bottom edge. I couldn't remember exactly what I did, so this only appears on one end of the towel, which I figure is fine because only the front of the towel will be showing when it hangs on the towel rack... that is if I decide to actually use it as a hand towel!

Size-wise the towel is pretty big. This shot compares it to another washcloth that I finished on Saturday. Kevin and I went to the Mets game and during the 1 hour rain delay I finished this off (which was then useful for drying ourselves off!). On the train ride home, I started another washcloth.

But, it actually isn't all washcloths and towels all the time. I just started a new hat (I know, odd for the end of July, but whatever).

This is the Droplet hat from Knitting Nature. I'm using Mountain Colors yarn in Mountain Goat. Our friends who we cat sat for brought this back for me and I thought it would be perfect for this hat. Unfortunately the camera didn't pick up all of the great colors in this yarn. The blue base is accented by green and pink and lighter blues. Very pretty! As much as I dislike bobbles, I am enjoying this pattern.

Look at how big these hot peppers are getting!!!!!

Kevin and I had a great picnic yesterday with some friends and Kevin's bro. After feasting, we went out to the movies and saw Clerks II. It was very funny!!! I'd highly recommend it to everyone (well, as long as you don't mind jokes about interspecies erotica!).

I just finished the Droplet Hat from Knitting Nature. I knit this with Mountain Colors hand-painted yarns in Mountain Goat. I used the recommend size 6 and 8 needles from the pattern and didn't check my gauge (I know, I know, I'm a terrible knitter). I was a bit worried for a while that the hat would be too small and that the knitting was way too loose on the size 8s, but once I sewed it up and popped it on my head, it was perfect. Oh wait, I just noticed that Lupine is written on the label. Maybe that's the color and not Mountain Goat. Well, it doesn't matter, I have a large portion of the ball leftover. It might be enough to squeak out another hat or maybe some matching wristlets (although the mohair in the yarn makes it a bit scratchy).

Click here to see an up-close picture of one of the droplets.

In the mail today, I got a box of yarn from Joann's that contained this...

I got 6 skeins of Moonlight Mohair and 4 balls of Trellis to make the Northern Lights Wrap for my mom. She saw the kit for this shawl in a woman's magazine and asked me if I'd make it. The magazine was selling the kit (yarn, needles, pattern) for $80 plus $16 shipping. When I looked up the prices of the yarn separately and saw that I could get it 1) on sale at Joann's and 2) with free shipping, we ordered it from there. The pattern description on Lion Brand stupidly (well, stupidly for them if they want you to buy the kit) tells you the amount of yarn and the pattern: "Rows of stockinette bordered with garter stitch; use a strand each of Moonlight Mohair and Trellis and finish with lush fringe. Finished size 12 inches by 70 inches." And, the magazine description went farther and mentioned that without fringe the length is 60 inches. So there's no need for wasting money on the pattern. A simple gauge swatch and I can figure out how many stitches to cast on for 12 inches. In the end, we saved about $30 (well, mom saved that much). I might start on this soon, but I don't know how quickly it will progress if it gets hot again.

Kim (not me) commented that that my hair is getting long and she likes it, so I need to be honest.

Ever since seeing Clerks II, I've been singularly obsessed with Rosario Dawson's hair.

Should I do it?!

I made a gauge swatch for Roundabout Leaf Tank.

I started with size 7, then tried 8, 9, and 10s. And I can't get gauge. I might be able to on 10.5s or 11s, but then the knitted material is too loose. I'm thinking of going with the 8s or 9s (since oddly the gauge on the 8 and 9 is identical) and maybe adding 2 sts. Because of the construction of the tank, I don't think being off gauge will be too bad until the top shaping, which I'll figure out when I get there.

Oh, and ignore the color in that picture. In real life the green is much more vibrant and pretty.

Oh... and yeah, I went and got my hair cut yesterday!

The pictures aren't the greatest since my hair is so dark and fades into the background, but it is cute and short. It is a bit shorter than I was hoping, but in about 2-3 weeks it should be at a good length. I really like it and I feel so much lighter and cooler (temperature-wise) without the weight of the long hair. Kevin likes it too, so what more could a girl want!? (Ok, if the hairdresser could have also magically given me Rosario's body that would be awesome, but I'll settle for the hair).

**If you're here for the knitting scoop, scroll down to the **.

Kevin took a little trip up to visit his parents this weekend. He went with one of his friends who he doesn't get to see often. Since it was a boys-only-trip, I got to stay home and swelter. The heat and Kevin away is not a good combo for me. Why? Because I try to find somewhere cool to hang out and end up at the mall, DSW, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Target. Yesterday morning I headed to the mall to visit Lens Crafters since my new glasses broke (screw fell out). The woman quickly fixed them and readjusted them. Then I headed out to DSW. Thankfully for my wallet, my small feet (we've had this discussion here before) means that it is hard to find shoes, which means I can drool over lots of shoes in DSW, but not come home with everything I try on. I saw this fantastic pair of red Steve Madden heels that I loved loved loved, but the smallest size was a 6 and they were falling off. But these made me singularly focused on obtaining red shoes. I have brown shoes and black shoes, but no red shoes. (Ok fine, I do have an old pair of red strappy shoes that I haven't worn in at least 2 years, but those don't count). I ended up leaving the store with some sexy, wine colored pointy-toe heels and some red suede cowboyish boots. I LOVE the boots. I can't wear them until at least mid-September (too hot now), but I'm so excited to wear them with jean-skirts and jeans and black skirts and my pjs (just kidding!).

After DSW, I hung out in Bed Bath and Beyond for a good long time. Is it horribly domestic of me to enjoy looking at all the kitchen gadgets and appliances? I did however have a bit of a mission in BBB. I'm sure everyone's sick of hearing about the heat 'cause most of us are in the same boat on that one, but Kevin and I have been making do with a window fan and large floor fan that have been running constantly, but since the 100+ temperatures are coming, I wanted more. I found a nice, affordable stand up oscillating fan (with remote! bonus!) that is now keeping me extra cool (we'll see how well this continues when it is super hot in a couple of days). I also bought some nifty ice cube trays; they're silicone and flexible! Oh, and speaking of keeping cool... yesterday I poured 2 cans of coke into the ice cream machine and made slushies!! They weren't quite slurpie consistency, but I bet with the addition of a little simple syrup it might be more slurpie-like. I'll keep y'all posted.

Today, I spent time in Target. I didn't really intend to buy clothes, but I found some cute plain v-neck t-shirts (a girl can never have too many t-shirts) and a belt. I have a black belt that I've had since college (maybe earlier) that has been a great belt and shows no sign of giving up, but in order to be less unfashionable, I've been on the search for a brown belt of equal goodness to the trusty black one. The one I picked up today seems promising.

La la la la la...

Posts are boring without pictures, yes? Unfortunately, on Friday before Kevin left, we smelled (smelt?) this funny burning plastic smell. Last time we smelled that smell, it was the old window fan burning/dying. We checked the current window fan. No smell from the fan. We then sniffed the other fan and tv (which were also on when the smell appeared). The only other variable in this equation was the desktop computer. The smell appeared sometime after I turned the computer on, was detected a second time while the computer was still on, and has not returned since I turned the computer off. I'm very afraid something was fried or in the process of frying inside the computer. I'm waiting until Kevin gets home later to disconnect the computer and investigate inside for evidence of melted components. I really really hope there isn't a problem (or that it just needs a cleaning). So there won't be any pics until that situation is figured out.

**The no pictures situation is unfortunate because yesterday I had a Gilmore Girls Season 5 marathon and knit knit knit on Roundabout. I finished the first "round" and have attached the spiral. The pattern is super easy and quick so it feels like it is flying. The leaves are at regular intervals that give you a goal to reach - "just 8 inches, then a leaf!" Actually, my leaves are supposed to be 7 3/4 inches apart, but that's not happening because of the gauge, so 8 inches is close enough. I've already started on the third skein of Cotton Twist. Ok, time to get back to spiraling around! Wee!!

What is this blurriness?

Hmmm... not much clearer.

Ok, I need to go back to my office and get cool and do some work. But I leave you with this funny picture:

During my Gilmore marathon on Saturday, Kevin called, so I paused and this was on the screen. Hahaha! Probably the ugliest moment for two very pretty women.

Oh, last thing... thanks for all the compliments on the haircut! I'm really enjoying it.

Oh oh... ok really the last thing... Kevin found out that another of good friend's wife is pregnant. She's not due for a long time, but I better dig up that Sheepie Blanket pattern. And speaking of Sheepie Blankets, did you see Jaimi's?